


Mythos

by okEmmOrWhatever



Category: Neverwinter (Video Game)
Genre: Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-16
Updated: 2018-06-27
Packaged: 2019-03-05 16:59:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 2,502
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13392222
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/okEmmOrWhatever/pseuds/okEmmOrWhatever
Summary: Collected grimoire pertaining to Morgenrot der Ruhig.





	1. Red Morning

**Author's Note:**

> Neverwinter and all cannon charters are owned by the D&D crew.
> 
> Any original characters or concepts herein are my own. Please do not use them without my explicit permission.
> 
> Thank you.
> 
> \---
> 
> Warnings will be given at the start of each chapter as they arise.

Red Morning

* * *

 

I was raised in a small enclave deep in the Cormanthor. I grew with the fauna as my siblings and the trees as my overseers. Others of my own race taught me tongues and weapons, but the trees taught me silence and power.

My name is "red morning."

I was kissed by the ink after the wood witch nearly took my life. My blade took his instead. His nymphs fear me now. I took their mother, in all his terrible power, and in their rage, they hide as I pass. Old, ancient old, trees no longer speak to me; their residents hate me. They fear my blade will take them too.

But for all the fear behind my reputation, I am known better as the Whisper of the Wood - part of it at least. We protect it from threats and poachers, even the King's hunters are wary of us.

  
If you hear our feet Whispering through the leaves, below or above, then you well may be about to die.

Amoung my race, I am distant. "The Quiet" is a pointed title amoung the Woodkin. They revere my encounter with the Witch. My scars tell of strength. My ink speaks to blood.

The nymphs fear and hate me. My race respect my survival and fear my corruption. The trees are my home, hidden up high in the dark as you walk on the floor below.


	2. Fragment: Consequences

Fragment: Consequences

* * *

 

Tollann says, "You're lucky you didn't lose your eye completely."

She says nothing.

His fingers lay the leaves and moss, damp with healing emulsion, against the burning tear that stretches across her right cheek. In the silence, the wailing still rings in her ears. The hot wind howling around her in the tight thicket, limned with harsh magik.

"When will the screaming end?"

He stops and watches her. "You still hear it."

"I have never felt arcana so hot. The Earth magik is cool and dim."

"The Witch studied with a different master."

"I can still see."

Tollann doesn't know what to say. He has never heard of this in their Wood. In the ancient city, especially after the darkness took it so many centuries ago, but not here.

"This is what we protect from."

"I know."

"How did you do it?"

"I pierced his ribs when he got close. My aim was lucky. I've never seen a Wood God bleed so dark."

"You will take the ink now. It is necessary."

Silence.

The ink burns. The ink changes you. The ink will make her separate.

"You will take the ink now." Tollann repeats.

"Yes..."

She wishes the shrill whirlwind would end. It drills into her soul.

She swats Tollann's hand away. "Enough."

The cool seeps into her skin and eases the burn of angry magik. She ties the cloth herself, holding the emulsion in place.

"It was foolish."

"It was necessary."

"To go alone?"

"I wasn't alone. Klar and Dwârrenn ran away. They're cowards."

Tollann says nothing.


	3. Fear

Fear

* * *

 

I look in the mirror and I know what they fear. They fear the screeching in my head, the screaming of the Witch that won't go away. They fear the blank eye that I can still see through. They fear the torn flesh where the Witch cut me with the claw of his forefinger. Soon they will fear the ink. But the ink will be a proclamation of my bravery, and a warning to others of my prowess. I have chosen the emblem I will take; it will represent the creeping corruption I resist. Whatever arcane path the Witch studied, it was one of darkness and quiet evil. And yet, it is so * _loud_. The elders say if the screaming doesn't leave me within the moon cycle, I will have to be put down. They cannot risk my corruption and the damnation of the Enclave. I worry I will begin to feel the Hunger.

  
The shrill wind is no softer than it was a week ago. And I am frightened. I do not want to feel the Hunger.

  
The unending noise is the Witch's scream. The wind tore hotly at my clothes and skin. I thought it would cut me, or catch me alight. But as loud as the wind was, the warning cry was worse. He rushed at me, like a banshee. My blade was lucky. And then my head exploded with his cacophony. Rage and hate and fear of the death he knew was immediate.

  
I'm thankful none of the nymphs seem to show signs of contracting the corruption. I pray to the Woodm'n that it is a good omen for me. I do not want to feel the Hunger.


	4. The Ink

The Ink

* * *

 

"Morgen der Stille. You have taken the ink as is required of you. From now forward, you are no longer silent, as the dark void screams in you. The blood stains your visage as the dawn stains the sky before a typhoon. From now forward you are Morgenrot der Ruhig. Red Dawn, the Quiet."

"I take this name with pride and sorrow."

"Do you keep and hold your Oath near?"

"I hold my Oath as my own breath and with every thought."

"Speak your name with The Wood."

"Morgenrot der Ruhig. Red Dawn, the Quiet. I am no longer silent, as the dark void screams in me. I am new from my cadré, but they remain my brothers. I hold my Oath as my own breath and with every thought."

>>

"Are you ready?"

"No. But there is no choice."

The salve is cold around her eye.

The bone pin etches the the lines. She feels blood trickle in narrow rivulets down her face. It stings. It will get worse.

The ink - blood of the blue worm - is set into the wounds. It is like the sea against torn flesh. I am not ready. But there is no choice.

The Craft Worker takes up her staff. She says the trance words. She speaks into the heat of dawn. At the same hour the scream entered my head, the light breaks over the hills and through her knotted tool. It glows white with hot arcana. And is set against my left eye.

She screams. The magik holds her in place and she wrythes violently against the burning, white, heat of it. It is far worse than the Witch's whirlwind. She kicks and tries to pull away. Her head cannot even begin to thrash; the arcana is a vice grip. Her hands grab at the limbs of the chair and push and she claws. And screams. There is no escape. And there is never any being ready.

Even those who are marked in multitude are not ready.

The blinding heat melts into her flesh, deep to the bone. And further. It encounters the scream boiling and unending in her soul— and blood pours down her face. The light sinks and shifts and turns red. Her own scream breaks as the heat vibrates with the shrieking and they echo one another, reverberate, become Numbness for a mere blink of the Universe. It is Eternity.

She is silent with tears and terror when the Craft draws her staff from her skin. She cannot move. She can barely breathe. The burn will take weeks to begin to end. It will never be gone— just as the shrieking will never be completely gone.

Around her left eye, the bone-pin lines filled, stained deep red.

"Go."

She is carried from the Craft's apothecary and taken to her bed. They lay her there and leave. Even Tollann won't come to sop the blood.

The Numbness is white and hot and loud, shrill whistle ringing in her ears.

Sleep is no different. Then it is dark and cold. And then the scream is back. When she wakes, the scream is alone, and her skin is burning.

>>

"... From now forward, you are no longer silent, as the dark void screams in you. The blood stains your visage as the dawn stains the sky before a typhoon."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- "Morgenrot der Stille" means Morning of the Silence, referring to her inclusion in the scout cadré.  
> \- "Morgenrot der Ruhig" is her name plus an individual title.


	5. Fragment: The Dales

Fragment: The Dales

* * *

 

I miss being a Green Watcher. And I miss the Starwood. Our enclave has protected the wood north of the Tangle since before the Dusk. We kept even the Drow from our thickets, and though our border was for a time small, it remained ours. Throughout the Retreat. Throughout the War.

I have now walked into the dales. I miss the trees overhead, and the thick undergrowth around my feet. The fields and stretching villages feel foreign and painful.

Here, the ravages of war are stark in a way The Wood does not allow. The Wood quickly swallows the abandoned settlements and heals them with soft mosses and green growth. Here, the hard edges of ruined homes and churches stand cold in the wind. Grey and empty, like a totem to death.

It has only been a moon cycle, and I feel so very lost.

Yet as each step takes me farther from my home, the noise in my head is duller, distant. The rage that made my face burn to slay Mathas is gone — or almost gone. It tickles the back of my skull. But it no longer sears my eyes. My ears are quiet. My mind is quiet.

I can never go back.

 


	6. Nacht

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW: animal death.

Nacht

* * *

 

A hovel of a ruin. The damage was old, but still raw on the surface of the structures. Ash littered the streets, and only scavengers and beasts were left. Rubble and burned out husks. These humans, they are truly monsters.

As I walked through this shattered village, I heard crying down a side alley. Not a human cry — all the scavengers were behind me, picking at the bones of a church on the west side of the town.

I was quiet as I picked my way into the rubble-cluttered ally, careful with my footing.

"Hello...?" I kept my voice small and quiet.

A whimper. A bit of timber shifted.

I leaned down, and there in the corner, huddled, shivering, and thin, was a small, black puppy. Fear. The only thing in its eyes was fear.

I took off my pack and retrieved a strip of dried venison.

"Here. I won't hurt you. I have food I can share."

I set the venison on the ground ahead of me and sat next to the wall.

Slowly, the pup crept out. Very slowly. As part of a protecting cadre, I am used to being patient, so I waited. As the babe nosed out, I saw how thin he was, how small, perhaps six weeks old, maybe eight. He retreated with the venison and tugged it to pieces. I watched. I waited. Then I set out another piece.

I spent the night there with him. He ate half of my meat rations over the course of many hours. And then he fell asleep beside me, huddled against the warmth of my leg.

As dawn broke over the distant ridge, I stood and carefully made my way through the rubble. The mother was dead behind a collapse. So were his three siblings. All thin. None yet rotting.

I went back to the pup and stroked my hand along his boney back. His eyes opened. He nosed my hand and pawed at my wrist.

"I think you should come with me, if you are willing."

He looked up at me with sad eyes.

"We will give them a proper burial first though. Let's find a suitable spot in the field."

I picked him up and walked East. The land outside the ghost of a village lay fallow, full of tall grasses and wildflowers, a few small trees starting in sparse stretches. I chose one and began pulling up the sod nearby with my hands. The pup sat right beside me the whole time, just sniffing the air. I dug down about a shin-length.

I put the pup in my pack as moved the rubble, careful not to further harm the bodies.

The mother was not frozen as I lifted her in my arms and carried her out to the grave. One of the pups still was. They had not been dead terribly long.

Once all four were carefully layed together in the Earth, I took the pup from my pack and we sat for a long while, silent.

"Goodbye. ...Namárië."

As the sun set, I gently pushed the mound of dirt over the bodies, carefully packed and smoothed it.

"Guten Nacht..." I said the to grave.

The pup barked.

"Nacht. Yes, I think that's perfect." I scratched behind his floppy ears and lifted him into my arms. We walked back to the east end of the village and found a building to camp out in for the night. We ate the rest of my venison together and Nacht fell asleep beside me.

In the morning, he crawled into my pack himself, and we set out along the road.

At least we weren't alone anymore.


	7. Fragment: The Hunt

Fragment: The Hunt

* * *

 

09:32, six weeks since the village ruin.

Nacht has tripled his weight and grown at least a hand-height. He will be large and strong, showing signs of both bull and wolf breeds in his lineage. A broad chest and square head, flopped ears, but the scruffy, coarse black coat of the mountain wolves, along with their sharp, green eyes.

The string is silent as it is drawn back with the nocked arrow. In the dense underbrush, Morgenrot is obscured, face masked with a greenweave shemagh and her body wrapped in her greenweave cloak, tastled and threaded with beast feathers.

The large buck steps into the clear.

She breathes. Nacht is dead-still beside her.

The arrow whispers through the air and sinks clean into the base of the buck's skull. It stumbles and falls to its knees, and then over onto the ground.

She rises. Nacht follows her lead and heels out from the bush.

"Thank you..." She checks that the heart and breathing is stopped, then pulls the arrow hard from the skull.

Next is the cleaning, butchering, smoking. The small smoke hutch is already built deep into the thicket so as not to be detected. Nacht wanders around her legs as she works, and earns a few scraps of meat for his good behavior. The feathers have helped in his training, as are their purpose.

As the meat smokes for the next 2 days, turned every few hours, Morgenrot eats what must be fresh, cleans the useable organs and bones, and begins the tanning process of the hide. She has all she needs in her survival pack, even the powder to mix with the brain to treat the hide. By the time the venison is fully dried and ready to be wrapped for rations, the hide is ready for smoking itself, and the hutch is expanded.

After a week's work, she has a full stock of rations again, as well several items — organs, bones, the antlers, possibly the tanned skin — to trade in the nearby hamlet, all securely wrapped together atop her pack.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- Greenweave: Exotic Materials by belithioben - https://m.imgur.com/a/OYYW5  
> \- Beast Feathers: Wilderness Surivival Guide by AeronDrake - https://dnd-5e-homebrew.tumblr.com/post/158850536652/wilderness-surivival-guide-excerpts-collecting


End file.
